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Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Protect the Arctic from Drilling

Maine Peace Walk: Militarization of the Seas

Pentagon’s Impact on the Oceans

October 9-24

Ellsworth, Maine to Portsmouth, New Hampshire
The Pentagon has the largest carbon footprint on our Mother Earth.
Waging endless war consumes massive amounts of fossil fuels and lays
waste to significant environmentally sensitive places on the planet –
particularly the oceans.

The oceans are inhabited by a
multitude of different life forms, from microorganisms to whales, many
of whom are able to sense sound and use it to find food, navigate,
communicate, and avoid predators. Navy sonar blasts wreak havoc on these
creatures, disrupting their lives, leaving animals more susceptible to
disease and lowered reproductive success, and sometimes injuring and
killing them.

Because Navy
sonars are extremely loud, depending on ocean conditions, that noise can
travel at harmful levels for tens or even hundreds of miles, impacting
huge numbers of animals. By the Navy’s own estimates, sonar noise can
still be as high as 140 decibels 300 miles from the source, a level that
is a hundred times more intense than the level known to result in
behavioral changes in large whales.

Some of these exercises
will even take place inside designated critical habitat for the already
endangered right whale, frequenter of Maine waters. In fact, the Navy is
now constructing a 500 square mile instrumented range off the coast of
Georgia where it intends to conduct 470 sonar exercises annually - the
Navy chose this site just offshore of the only known calving grounds of
the right whale! In March 2015 Navy sonar testing near Guam led to the
stranding of three beaked whales.

The Kennebec River that BIW fronts is often dredged in order to allow
the deep hulled destroyers built there to get into the ocean. Dredging
takes a heavy toll on aquatic life.

The Portsmouth Naval
Shipyard has caused serious pollution of the local environment. The
shipyard is on an island that the Pentagon considers as one of their
facilities most vulnerable to climate change, particularly their
dry-dock facilities. Rising sea levels could affect shipyard toxic waste
sites which are now mostly right on the shoreline and would seriously
impact water quality and sea life.

Ocean Acidification

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution in the early 1800s,
fossil fuel-powered machines have driven an unprecedented burst of human
industry and society. Ocean acidification is the ongoing decrease in
ocean pH caused by human fossil fuel emissions. Oceans currently absorb
approximately half of the CO2 produced by burning fossil fuel. An
estimated 30–40% of the carbon dioxide released by humans into the
atmosphere dissolves into oceans, rivers and lakes.

Arctic Militarization Due to Climate Change

In early 2014 Maine’s Sen. Angus King went on a nuclear submarine ride
under the Arctic Sea ice which is now melting due to climate change.
Admiral Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations was on the sub and
said, “In our lifetime, what was [in effect] land and prohibitive to
navigate or explore, is becoming an ocean… We need to be sure that our
sensors, weapons and people are proficient in this part of the world,”
so that we can “own the undersea domain and get anywhere there.”

When Sen. King returned from the trip he told his constituents that
there has been "a 40% reduction in ice as a result of global warming."
He reported that "previously inaccessible" gas and oil reserves were now
going to create "new opportunities". King concluded, "I am convinced
we need to increase our capacity in the region, something I intend to
press upon my colleagues on the Armed Services Committee as we work on
our military priorities for the coming years."

Rather than
drill for more fossil fuels in the Arctic, and create a new arms race in
that environmentally sensitive region, the US should be working to
convert our military industries to build offshore wind turbines, rail,
solar and tidal power. According to studies done by theUMASS-Amherst
Economics Department shipyards in Bath and Portsmouth could nearly
double their number of jobs by building rail or wind turbines. The Gulf
of Maine has more wind power generating potential than any other place
in the US.

Help Save Our Seas

If the seas die so do
humans on Earth and much of the wildlife. Now is the time to speak out
for ending the massive military impacts on the world’s oceans and for
conversion of our fossil fuel dependent military industrial complex to
sustainable technologies. We will walk to bring attention to these
crucial issues. Please help us carry this message to the public by
joining with us.